Friday, January 2, 2015

Lessons From 2014

There’s that saying that goes something like, “Smart people
learn from their own mistakes, geniuses learn from the mistakes of others.” So,
let’s reflect a bit on my 2014 year, which had such major ups and downs, in a
hope that it will make me smarter. If the saying really is true, then I hope
you become a genius. Remember to come back and help me out after that happens.

Losing Nationals

I don’t really want to go back here, but it was a major
highlight. All the feelings and emotions I went through during this time was
intense. I usually am pretty chill otherwise, but writing this blurb has
already raised my heart rate (seriously, I measured). It makes me angry, it
drives me forward. I only need to think about this and I have instant
motivation to do anything. Of course it’s a highlight, because it moves me so
much. Never again will I want anything like this to happen, and I have grown
from the experience. But I have not forgotten it. Perhaps it’s like the intro
to an epic movie. Something bad happens to the protagonist, and a bit of him
dies at the beginning. However, he picks himself up as it motivates him to
finish his task. Since this is my own epic and my own story, I think it did
make a difference, looking back from today. I’ve learned. I’ve grown. I’ve
evolved.

Lesson: Put yourself first. If you can’t take care of
yourself, you can’t take care of anyone.

Diving into Strength & Conditioning

(Dean Somerset trying to get me to relax my stomach)

Sometimes you just gotta dive in, and it’s sink or swim. I’ve
totally felt this way about strength & conditioning, and getting involved
with training at Fortius, joining the UBC Thunderbird Strength & Conditioning Club, attending Charlie Weingroff’s seminar, attending the BC NSCA Conference,
attending Dean Somerset’s seminar, and doing an FMS Mentorship with Fit To Train,
as well as helping out at their Level 1 & 2 Combo course. That is some
significant money spent, but I feel it is well worth every cent. If you want
something done well, it’s better to pay someone who knows what they’re doing to
tell you what to do, or at least teach you what you should be doing. Trying
your best and believing that everything will be okay only get you so far, if
you’re using archaic techniques. At least that’s what I believe.

Lesson: Have an open mind and keep learning. Spend the extra
money to learn from the best; I’d like to think of it as quality learning over
quantity.

Finally Out of School

I did graduate in November 2013, but I was still registered
in 2 courses from January to April. I took 2 kinesiology seminars, including
functional anatomy and clinical exercise rehab (both great courses, UBC KIN
489E and 489B respectively if you wanted to know). I started off-season
training at Fortius at the end of February as well, and continued it for 4
months. It was nice to train almost full time for 4 months and I think it
really made a huge difference, even up until recent tournaments. However, I can
feel the training slowly fading and another couple months of off-season
conditioning would be great before starting the Olympic year. Though I’m out of
school, I’ll never be out of learning something new. Being open minded is
useful, although you need to combine it with critical thinking. Sometimes,
things just don’t make sense and it’s okay if you don’t want to believe in nonsense.
It’s everywhere nowadays.

Lesson: It’s nice every now and then to have a set schedule
which you don’t deviate from. Routine can bring great results.

Commonwealth Games

(Source:Yan Huckendubler)

Despite the hiccup at Nationals, I barely made the
Commonwealth Games team (although my National ranking has suffered).
Fortunately, we took the top spot by a few ranking points, so we got to go to
Glasgow for the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Prior to the tournament, we had an
optional staging camp in Ireland, which a few of us participated in, and I was
happy I went along for the experience. The Commonwealth Games were very well
run and it was a wonderful experience overall, especially getting to see
Michelle Li win that semifinal match against India. Unfortunately, most of us
missed the final and award presentations, but I think most of us believed she
would have little trouble taking the gold medal after than amazing performance
in the semifinals. Great performance by rising star Rachel Honderich as well,
as her and Michelle had a huge win against Australia in the team event. It was
nice to be part of a team and to see some players really pushing forward and
getting results. It’s inspiring.

Lesson: Celebrate the work ethic of others. I say this
because the expression typically says to “Celebrate the success” of others.
Sometime people succeed because they get lucky, and celebrating luck may
compromise our own work ethic, especially if we give up and wait for luck. Make
your own luck through a strong work ethic and have the best of both worlds.

World Championships

Although my match itself didn’t last very long, it was an
interesting experience in Denmark overall. After not getting a hotel
reservation, our coach, Jeff White, did all he could to find us accommodations
and made sure we had a place to stay for a few nights. Additionally, he ended
up staying at a crappier hotel so that the other players could stay at a nicer
one. I would also like to thank Thomas Stavngaard for letting me stay at his
house with Derrick and Adrian. The tournament was run quite well except for a
minor transportation hiccup (the bus driver left without half of our team…),
and getting to see some of the world’s best duke it out live is always a treat.
This tournament also highlights the efforts of Jeff in taking the time to talk
to Alex and I and our partnership, and acting as a bridge to improve our
communication with each other. In the end, I would say it made a huge
difference.

Lesson: Spread the good karma. Help someone out if you can,
because you can’t always pay the same person back. Maybe it will eventually get
around full circle.

Precision Nutrition Certification

Taking about a month to train and study after World
Championships, I finally got around to doing my Precision Nutrition Level 1
Certification. I signed up in March, but really didn’t get around to anything
until September. I said I would start after my classes ended, then I decided
after my summer tournament schedule, and then… I set a hard deadline and met
it. September 30th was the deadline, so I pretty much crammed as
much info as I could into the 5 days before my deadline (procrastinator at
heart). Fortunately, I’ve covered a lot of the material in University courses
at UBC. The certification is very good because it combines half nutrition and
half coaching. What good is information if you don’t know how to communicate
it? I wonder if people are still reading my blog… Anyway, it’s nice to get a
bit of nutrition information and I can always do some more research or find an
expert if I need to go deeper into a certain concept. Additionally, now I have
a better idea how I should eat!

Lesson: A little knowledge about nutrition can go a long
way, especially when I have a family of my own. Coming up from a Chinese
background, it took a long time to throw away the idea of multiple bowls of
rice each meal. Maybe I also threw away a greater risk of diabetes as well.

Pan Am Championship (Pan Am Tour)

(Source: John Lei)

The tournament started really rocky, with losses to two
teams in the Team Event. Fortunately, Michelle and Rachel pulled off an amazing
win in the WD for Canada to take the Team Gold against the top Pan Am WD team.
Not that Michelle’s WS and Adrian/Derrick’s MD wins are worth any less, it’s
just that the odds were probably in favour of USA for that deciding match.
Continuing into the individual tournament, I’m glad I didn’t give up. It was
depressing and I was trying really hard to understand what was happening, but
it felt like everything I tried didn’t work. I asked many people for their
feedback and I got a lot of great feedback from everyone, and fortunately it
was just enough for that week to get us through to reclaim our title. However,
even though we won, I still learned from our mistakes and it was in Orlando the
week after that really changed everything.

Lesson: Sometimes, all you can do is to try and initiate the
process. Getting started and waiting to see if someone will meet you halfway is
all you can do, because you can’t always do everything yourself. But if you
never initiate the process, maybe things will never get started. If you really
want something to happen, you gotta take that chance. You gotta open the box;
curiosity killing a cat is better than inaction. At least you know.

Europe Tour

6 of us went to compete at the Scottish and Welsh
Internationals at the end of November and we ended up using AirBnB for
accommodations, and I would recommend the service as an alternative to hotels.
We booked an entire town house in Scotland, and a couple of rooms in Wales. The
tournaments went well and Alex and I were able to continue training as much as
we could before, during, and between tournaments. Sometimes you just have to
make the most of the situation, and in the end, I think we did fairly well with
our results, making a quarterfinal in Scotland, and a semifinal in Wales.

Lesson: Taken from Dan John, who took it from Dan Gable: “If
it’s important, do it every day. If it isn’t, don’t do it at all.” We didn’t
have much time to train and practice, so we just kept honing the most important
skills we needed for the tournament.

Selling Supplements

Being certified with Precision Nutrition had an additional
perk of getting the change to be and affiliate with ThorneFX. They have some
really high quality supplements geared more toward fitness people and I’ve had
the opportunity to sample most of their products. Additionally, I recently got
enrolled with USANA, a network marketing supplement company through an old
friend, who has been quite successful with USANA. I took the opportunity to see
if I can make some extra income as an athlete, and selling supplements seemed
like a reasonable thing to do, with a small background in nutrition. I like
USANA because they don’t make any crazy claims to their supplements, and they
offer a wide variety of products for one to ‘supplement’ their health.
Additionally, learning to sell is a huge skill to have. However, I don’t want
to oversell anything to anyone. I stand by my product because I use it as well.
Not to enhance performance, but for general health.

Lesson: If we ate healthy, exercised regularly, slept
enough, and drank enough water, would we need supplements? Maybe not. But be
honest, how often do you eat well enough, exercise enough, sleep enough, or
drink enough water? I won’t lie to myself, that’s why I use supplements.

Coaching in Winnipeg

I was offered an opportunity to coach in Winnipeg for
Badminton Manitoba and I jumped at the chance, despite the cold weather and
increased chance of getting sick. Despite the amount of people falling to
sickness, I think the camp went pretty well. It was nice to get to meet new
people and I would like to thank those who helped to organize the camp and
billet me. The exhibition was pretty fun as well, and it was nice to see so
many people come and support the event! It’s always nice to get a chance to
coach a good group of motivated players, and I wish them all the best with their
new knowledge and skills.

Lesson: I did the camp 2 years ago, and I have changed the
way I view certain things. I probably will have a different stance on other
things in the future as well. With that said, it’s okay to take information and
use it if it’s useful, but be sure not to hold onto it forever, especially if
there is a need for change.

Live, learn, and pass it on. As we begin another year, I
wish you all success in your goals. I know I have mine…

2 comments:

Toby, do great athletes 'ask' or 'accept' the input of others during a tournament, or is that we do have the knowledge of what it takes to win inside of us? And if we do 'ask' or 'accept' advice, who do we ask? What I have learned in business is that to succeed, one has to have a plan. One executes to plan and makes adjustments as new information comes along. However, a well defined plan has a risk mitigation strategy, meaning if A happens, we will do X. If B happens we will do Y. These are all pre-thought in advance, so one can move quickly to implement. Shouldn't playing a match be like that, meaning if somethings not worked, you automatically switch to the alternate plan? Would this engrained 'plan' make it easier for your brain to put the plays and movements into action vs. some happenstance advice from a bystander? In business, we go to those who are experts for advice. Who are the experts in your domain, other players, spectators, coaches, or...? What do they do in other sports? I am not sure, hence the question(s). John Tagdawg a.k.a. Mike Meraw

Great question, and I think it depends on the athlete most of the time. Some do better with more feedback, while some don't take feedback very well. It may depend on their style of play, where some are very good at a particular style of play and less able to adapt, while others are able to adapt better, but may not be particularly strong in any one style. Advice is often more useful from a coach, or even fellow player with more experience in the sport, but I have taken lessons from other coaches from other sports, and ideas from other people. It's one thing to keep an open mind, but the real challenge is being able to filter out the information and find things that will work. Having a system in place will really help sort things out, which is pretty much like the business plan that you suggested. Having strong fundamental skills, specifically technical skills and physical capacity will often give you more options to work with. For example, "attack everything" is a viable strategy at times, but without the physical capacity to attack consistently and for an extended period of time, it would be difficult to execute this strategy. Or on the flip side, "defend everything" is perhaps based on more technical ability to move the shuttle around the court and deflect smashes into the right spots. If there isn't an ability to execute "Plan B", there really is no plan B, except delaying the inevitable, or opt for Plan C. However, as a counterpoint, sometimes it really is giving up on the right plan too early. It might have been the right strategy, and the opponent just hasn't cracked yet. Often, it's really difficult to tell until you see it in hindsight.

Seeking advice is not easy, and there are good coaches and athletes that can help you in hindsight. I'd like to think that a good coach can tell you what you did wrong after you've already done it, while a great coach will tell you what to do so you can prevent a bad thing from happening.